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Wednesday, August 7, 2013

corn crepecakes

Those lazy Sunday morning pancakes I mentioned? They were actually corn crepes. Or corn pancakes.

Er, crepecakes?
Pancrepes?

Gah, they were whatever you call a thin pancake or a thick crepe. That.

Plus, they were delicious.

I got the idea for these babies from Deb. Crepes that call for corn, you say? I am living in the Land of the Maiz, so, Please, I need more corn.

On my Friday morning saunter through the market, I bought one ear of fresh field corn. Once home, I blackened the kernels over the gas flame and then whirled them in the blender along with the melted butter, milk, egg, and—not flour like Deb suggested, but—maseca flour. Because, obviously.

I ate my lunch crepecake with butter and syrup and it was good.

There were three leftover. I saved them for an after school snack for the kids, but they weren’t hungry much, so I pulled them out as a finishing touch to our supper feast of leftovers. I reheated them in the skillet, stacked 'em up, poured syrup over the whole mess, cut the stack in wedges and doled them out. The fans went wild.

Sunday morning I’ll make them, I promised. But you need to go get me more corn.

That afternoon he hiked into town to the grocery store for four fresh ears. (Not really, the sad ears he got were mummified in a tomb of plastic and styrofoam.)

The next morning, we ate crepecakes. The girls (me not included) decided they weren’t fans after all, but the male half of the family ate them all up. I’m not sure what this means. That my boys are corny, maybe?

Keep in mind that I was using something along the lines of field corn—dry and mealy. Sweet corn, I’m sure, yields a quite different crepe. Because field corn is less sweet and juicy, I added a little sugar to my batter.

Go ahead and fiddle with the amount of liquid or the type of grain: flour, cornmeal, maseca, etc. To drive the point home, you could stud the batter with some whole corn kernels. And remember, corn and blueberries are amiable companions. (For some adventure, I sprinkled a generous amount of black pepper over the last couple, freshly-poured-in-the-frying-pan cakes. They were good, but not earth shatteringly so.)

Deb recommends adorning these with cilantro, salty cheese, and mayonnaise. I haven’t tried it yet, but I bet it’d be delish.

Roast the ears of corn over an open flame. The kernels will pop madly while they blacken. This, both the popping and the blackening, is all good. When the ears are cool enough to handle, cut off the kernels.

Combine all ingredients in a blender and whizz until well-combined, smooth, and frothy.

Fry up the batter as you would crepes or pancakes. Serve warm with butter and syrup.